The Journey Itself

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JUNE 2011 | WILLIAMS ALUMNI REVIEW | 15

Of all the books lining the shelves of

beloved chemistry professor Hodge

Markgrafs 52 office in Bronfman,

only two dealt with subjects outside

of his field of study. Both were monographic vol-

umes on the art of Jenny Holzer.

Holzer is known the world over for using lan-

guage to engage and provoke. Her texts have been

projected on massive gallery walls, broadcast in

bands of LEDs, coalesced into giant walls of light

in public outdoor spaces and printed on posters.

Markgraf encountered one of her large-scale

works late in life, while traveling in Germany.

Fascinated, he began corresponding with Holzer

herself no stranger to Williams as a past honor-

ary degree recipient living and working in nearby

Hoosick, N.Y., and married to artist and studio ar

professor Mike Glier 75. The chemist and artist

became friends, and Markgraf began working to

have a piece by her commissioned for the campus.

When Markgraf died in 2007, students, alumni

and friends picked up where the chemist who

talked like a down-to-earth poet, as he was

known, had left off. With the help of chemistry

professor Jay Thoman 82 and several students

primarily Charles Seipp 11who lent their

drawing, computer and proofreading skills, Holzer

assembled a collection of 715 molecular diagrams

representing water, the gypsy moth pheromone,

DDT, ethanol, components of chocolate and more

Individually, the structures are graphic metaphors

for much larger concepts about war, love, natural

phenomena, emotion, pleasure and pain. Taken

together, and sandblasted over nearly every surface

of a 16-by-4-foot stone table and four benches, the

overall effect appears much like stellar cartography.

Just days after the piece was installed in the

Science Quad in April, Thoman, who is the col-

leges J. Hodge Markgraf Professor of Chemistry,

took advantage of the decent weather to hold

his thermodynamics class outside, at the tableMarkgraf helped to inspire.

Reported by Maggie Adler 99, MA 11

ROMAN IWASIWKA

715 molecules, 2011

Sandblasted diorite table and benches

Williams College, Williamstown, Mass.

2011 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY


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At nearly every step along the way, faculty, staff and alumni

are there to helpwhether theyre steering promising students

toward particular fellowships, writing letters of recommendation,

offering feedback on essays or drilling them during mock inter-

views. Alumni who were Rhodes Scholars and Marshall Fellows

work one-on-one with current applicants. For fellowships that

limit the number of students who may apply from each college, a

committee composed of faculty, King and a dean (or other staff

member) interviews candidates and selects nominees.

We get to know the kids, says King. We push and we prod.

We comfort and encourage. Then we send them off with as much

confidence in themselves as possible.

No matter the outcome, its the rare student who doesnt gain

somethingclarity, confidence, focus, poisefrom the process. In

Saltzmans case, the Truman application was a launching point

to think about my own future critically in a way I hadnt done

before. For many, even if they dont win a fellowship, the process

is life changing, helping them to think about who they are and

what they want to do, encouraging them to dream big and focus

on ways to achieve their goals, and providing them with the confi-

dence and critical-thinking skills to get them there.

Your Life Goals in 400 Words or Less

An anthropology major and premed student, Saltzman had been

involved in community service since elementary school, when she

campaigned to save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She spent

the summer after her freshman year at Williams as a hospital

volunteer and accompanied a medical team on a service trip

to Mexico and a research trip to Ghana. She taught an envi-

ronmental class for sixth-graders at Williamstown Elementary

School, wrote articles for the Williams Recordabout the impact

of the recession on neighboring towns, helped found Williams

Sustainable Growers and petitioned the college for a Center forCommunity Engagement, all while playing in the orchestra and

leading the college cycling team.

So Saltzman seemed a good candidate for a Truman

Scholarship, a highly selective national award for college juniors

planning careers in public service. With a stipend for graduate

school of up to $30,000, the Truman also provides counseling for

graduate school admission, internship placement and career and

professional development.

The Journey Itself

While Saltzman had plenty of accomplishments to tout in her

application, the Truman folks also wanted to know her goals,

asking questions like: What position do you hope to attain imme-

diately after graduate school? Five to seven years after that? And

what problem or social need do you want to address when you

enter public service? About to begin her junior year, she had never

seriously considered these questions before.

She began the work of answering them at her parents house,

scribbling in her notebook. (Writing helps me think, she says.)

And she continued overseas at Oxfordwhere she spent a full

yearchecking in with the fellowships office via email and video

chat when she had a question or needed feedback.

She considered practicalities and made a list of things she

wanted to be able to afford in lifesustainably produced food,

a small house, a good education for the children she might have

someday. She calculated what those things might cost and what

she might earn working in public service versus a more lucra-

tive career in the private sector. She listed her previous jobs and

decided what she liked and disliked about each, noticing that

she was happiest when her tasks were varied and involved doing

research and lab work. She explored advanced-degree programs

and realized that fields such as environmental health and global

environmental health justice excited her.

She thought the hard work was over once she identified her

goalsgoing to medical school, getting a masters in public health

and working with multidisciplinary teams to design environmental

health programs or to translate research into improved health care.

But it was just as hard to stick to the applications word limits.

I had to cut a lot of descriptions, Saltzman says.

She also had to write a brief proposal addressing a policy issue

of her choice.

All the ideas I wanted to address were huge, she says. And

I had only 200 words to propose a solution and 200 words to

describe the problem.

Saltzman thought through countless ideas and read hundreds

of journal articles. I went over the top, she says, but she also

educated herself about some of the most important health issues

in her state. Her final proposal was a succinct, well-informed,

four-part strategy to prevent childhood Type 2 diabetes in Utah.Though she was chosen as one of Williams three nominees

for a Truman, Saltzman didnt get the fellowship. But she has no

regrets and says the processcoupled with the time she spent at

Oxfordhas made her more inclined to apply for a Rhodes or

Marshall Scholarship this coming year, as a senior.

The application propelled me toward thinking about my

future far more specificallyand seriouslythan before,

Saltzman says. I learned a lot about opportunities available,

specific societal issues and myself.


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Transforming Passion into Purpose

Clint Robins 11 had been playing football for 12 years when

he was faced with a decision. As a sophomore he won a national

Mellon Mays Research Fellowship, designed to help remedy a

serious shortage of faculty of color in higher education. The fel-

lowship enables a student to delve into a research project for a

few years as an undergraduate to determine if graduate school is

the path he or she wants to take.

Robins projectto assist biology professor Heather Williams

with research on how Savannah sparrows communicate with

each otheradded many hours on top of an already heavy course

load. During a football practice, his running back coach noticed

Robins was struggling with exhaustion.

He told me flat out, I know you love this sport, but you

JUNE 2011 | WILLIAMSALUMNI REVIEW|19

cant function, Robins, the Class of 1960 Scholar in

biology, says. Research is whats making you happy,

getting you places. Quit football. Its not the end of

the world.

So he made the unusual and difficult decision to

give up football, creating room for someone else on

the roster before the first game of the season his junior

year. When I left, Robins says, I felt like Id lost a

piece of myself. But he relished the opportunity to

focus exclusively on research.

His work on sparrows song structures evolved into

a senior honors thesis, confirmed his desire to pursue

a graduate degree and led him to another jumping-off

point. During the long drive back to campus from

a field research trip in New Brunswick, Canada,

Williams suggested Robins apply for a Thomas J.

Watson Fellowship, which awards a $25,000 grant for

a year of independent, purposeful exploration and

travel to 40 college graduates of unusual promise

selected from private liberal arts colleges and universi-

ties around the nation.

Robins already had an idea in mind. Ever since

he was a child, the biology majorwhose mother is

Rwandan and whose father, a cultural anthropolo-

gist, has studied social issues surrounding the killing

of gorillas in the Rwandan National Parkhad been

fascinated by the bushmeat crisis. With a Watson,he would have the chance to explore the cultural and

social issues surrounding this hunting of and trade in

endangered wild animals in tropical countries.

He began the application process by sending out

100 emails to organizations and individuals around

the world involved in wildlife conservation. Twenty

people responded, offering additional names and

specific information about the bushmeat crisis in

each of their countries. Over several months Robins

MARKMCCARTY

The insights you get from being forced to

reflect on what you aspire to, what

youre passionate about, what you want to

do with your life, are invaluable at this

stage in life and so helpful for so many

things you will do as adults.

Katya King

Clint Robins 11,Watson applicant


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built a contact list for communities at risk in Ghana, Cameroon,

Uganda, India and Chile, and he constructed an efficient travel

itinerary for how he would spend his fellowship year.

He solicited ideas and feedback from across the Williams

community. During his interview with the colleges nominating

committee, which would select up to four students to apply for

Watsons from a pool of 20, King and Chick suggested that he

take advantage of his involvement in sports. His experience with

soccer, in particular, popular in all the countries he wanted to

visit, might be a useful icebreaker in his researcha way to win

the trust of people he wanted to interview. A friend who won a

Watson the previous year gave Robins ideas for how he could use

his time between interviews overseas: Hire a tutor to learn the

language, go to the international student center, take a course

The more he fleshed out his plan, the more excited he became

thinking about it. You create a Watson from a personal pas-

sion, says Robins, an adventurer who has helped rehabilitate

eagles in Alaska, photographed sharks from inside a cage in

the Indian Ocean and conducted field surveys of fauna in the

Australian outback.

Though he was nominated as a finalist, and his Watson inter-

view went well, Robins ultimately wasnt selected. But hes not

ready to give up yet. Encouraged by his parents and the fellow-

ships office, as of May he was looking for another source of

funding to go overseas. He also was considering work as a lab

assistant for a year at Duke, where faculty members have affilia-

tions with Kruger National Park in South Africa.

I am still invested in my project and will take every oppor-

tunity to pursue it, he says. As he wrote in his personal state-

ment for the Watson, Each experience has reinforced my

belief that the greatest learning comes from the most unfamiliarcircumstances.

Nurturing Personal Growth

I never thought I would be saying this, but I consider myself a

gay rights activist, Emanuel Yekutiel 11 wrote in his application

for a Watson Fellowship. Three years ago I was closeted in L.A.,

unhappy, and I had no idea what I was going to do with myself.

Three years later, I was standing on the streets of San Francisco,

fundraising for gay rights with a kippah on. We can never predict

where were going to be.

Yekutiel, an Orthodox Jew, came out in front of 250 people at

the Paresky Center three weeks into his freshman year. The occa-

sion was Storytime, a Sunday night event in which one member

of the Williams community tells his or her life story to a college

audience. Yekutiel had planned to talk about what it was likegoing from a yeshiva where everyone wore a kippah, or skull-

cap, to being the only Orthodox Jew at L.A.s Harvard Westlake

High School.

Thats been a tough adjustment, he told the crowd at

Paresky. Im working through that part of my identity.

Then, because the moment felt right, he said, One other part

of me that Im coming to terms with is the fact that Im gay.

Looking back, Yekutiel says it was really helpful to come out

early on: Being out at Williams made this place safe for me,

The Journey Itself

We get as emotionally invested as

students do. Its exhilarating when they win.

When they lose, its our loss, too.

Katya King

Emanuel Yekutiel 11,Watson applicant

Documents

The Journey Itself